You're listening to Weird and Dead, the paleontology podcast
that tells evolution's most embarrassing and bizarre
stories. I'm Megan Wetherell.
And I'm Amy Atwater, and we're two living scientists who are
weirdly excited about dead things.
On this episode, we dive into the disgusting digits and freaky
phalanges of dinosaurs and mammals.
Well, Iguanodon and Panas. It turns out that getting extra
fingers or adding on to your existing ones is not as weird as
the whole rest of Iguanodon's murder mittens.
Like always, our podcast is disgusting and for adults, so
please check the content warnings before continuing.
Here we go. This is a freaky fingers
episode. I'm really excited to hear how
all of these can I say inner finger.
I mean, you just did, so I guess I can't stop you.
We're going to go on a prehistoric safari of weird
fingers in fossil blood, bull and living creatures as well.
Actually quite a bit of living creatures too.
But we're going to start today's journey with a dinosaur that I
knew nothing about two years ago.
And then I started working at Dinosaur Ridge, and now I know a
lot about Iguanodon. Iguanodon.
OK, Iguanodon. It's a dinosaur, all right.
Iguanodon is interesting because it is one of the first dinosaurs
to receive a name. There was a summer camper today
telling me about how the first dinosaur to be named is
Megalosaurus, and I told him he was wrong, but I said don't look
up the other ones. Yeah.
And then I was like, I got to go.
I cannot be, you can't do this, baby.
Because, yeah, I'm a firm believer that the first dinosaur
named was Scrotum humanum. But everyone is like, it wasn't
until like over 100 years later that they named Megalosaurus in
the UK. And then pretty soon after that,
Iguanodon came about and earned its name.
It was first discovered in the UK as well.
So it's this herbivorous dinosaur.
I've read that because it's one of the first named, it is one of
the most traded dinosaurs of all time, and.
Oh, that makes sense. So one of the things that makes
Iguanodon kind of cool marginally is that it has a
thumb spike, which we'll talk about.
But when they first found Iguanodon.
So Iguanodon was discovered by well, it's debated if it was
found by just Mary Ann Mantel or if it was discovered by her and
her husband Gideon, or whatever the fuck that name is.
I don't know. It's weird name in my opinion.
Gideon, yeah. Gideon yeah, stop taking credit
for your wife's shit. This is the day and age of
essentially, like a lot of it's a little bit before Mary Anning
and everything. But the story goes that she
found the teeth. Her husband was a doctor.
She was like walking around between his appointments or
something and found these big ass teeth that were really weird
looking. And he was the one who then was
like, oh, I'm going to write to all these scientific minds at
the time and whatnot. And because it looks like the
tooth of an iguana but bigger, they named it Iguana Dawn, which
is iguana tooth. And one of the interesting
things, one of the OK, actually it's entire hand, it's entire
hand finger is fucking weird. So it's thumb is a straight up
spike. But when they first found it,
they interpreted the spike to go on the nose because they thought
it was like a rhinoceros iguana, just giant size and.
Yeah, and at that point they'd like only like Europeans had
only just recently learned about rhinos, right?
Like, we were still drawing them as like, weird kind of artistic
tanks. Yeah, I think, I'm pretty sure
at that book, maybe we maybe we'd known about rhinos for like
50 years, 100 years. But we hadn't known about them
for super long and we were not good at drawing.
Them No, but we definitely put rhinos and like unicorns in like
the same camp of existing animals like it was fully.
And it's just like Thomas Jefferson being like go forth
and find the bison and the woolly mammoths and the giant
ground sloths, Lewis and Clark, because that's what it did.
So yeah, it's definitely in this era of exploration and
discovery. And my favorite thing though,
because it's been so highly illustrated, but the thumb
spikes are one of the most defining things about it is
every single picture of a quadad just looks like it's giving you
this big old thumbs up like it's hitchhiking or something.
Like it is like they have to like every picture is like.
Just thumbs. Dinosaurs are OK, it's just a.
Group of iguanodon walking through like, you know, an
environment, whatever. And all of them, their thumbs
are just super prominent. Like it's just I, I laugh every
time we have some at the bathroom at work and I like
laugh my ass off while I'm peeing because I'm looking at
these hitchhiking iguanodons. So we talk about them at
Dinosaur Ridge. Because our tracks were made by
some type of ornithopod. It's now thought to be more of a
true hadrosaur duck bill dinosaur, whereas iguanodons are
more like oh shit fuck me in my dinosaur taxonomy they're not
quite true hadrosaurs yet, even though they're still stupid duck
faced herbivore things with essentially weird hooves and
then duck feet in the back. I just, you know.
OK, I guess I'm making this face because everything about
Iguanodon is kind of a blur to me, except the thumb spike, to
be perfectly fair. So I'm like, Oh yeah, it's like
a herbivore. And that's 100% of what I knew.
So it does have the freaky hooves.
Kind of also dislike the fact that dinosaurs it's.
Debated. It doesn't have like the hoof of
what we are seeing in things like Brachyolophosaurus or
Amontosaurus and more of these like later derived hadrosaurs.
But it's debated with its creepy fucking hand if the middle three
fingers operated as kind of a hoof or if they were separate,
or if they were like, I'm serious, webbed.
So they have really weird mitten hands is how they're frequently
described. So they got a thumb spike for a
thumb. They got three weird giant
fingers in the middle, and then they have this creepy prehensile
pinky. What?
Go ahead and scroll. OK, I mean, our pinky is
prehensile. Yeah, bro, right.
Yeah. OK, OK.
You're going to see some freaky shit, man.
I love that you've like not really seen Iguanodon and this
is like your foray into Iguanodon and it is so weird.
OK, so. Huh.
OK. Go ahead and describe these
bones that you're seeing. I gave one of the bones
themselves and a schematic drawing of the bones.
Right. So we've got the thumb spike,
which this was going to be one of my questions is it is a
modified digit. It appears to be anyways, so
it's digit number one. And then that's sticking out
hitchhiking style. And then we have 3 janky ass
fingers with hoof like endings. And then what appears to be just
like an opposite and like this is a rocker, right?
Like that's. The yes, yes, yes, that would be
accurate. Yeah, it's but like the the
pinky it has instead of having like elongated joints like most
animals that walk on their tip toes do, like deer, anything
that has hooves, it's spikier looking.
And does it have extra digits? In extra phalanges, so there are
they have different number of phalanges.
Hyperdactyls. Bro.
That's the word I had to see. Freak.
Yeah. So that just means it has extra,
it added digits onto it added. It's like taking your.
Go go gadgeted phalanges to make its fingers longer.
Instead of extending an individual phalanx to make it
longer, it just modified and was able to add extra bones.
Yeah, like adding another, like the bone that supports your
pinky nail, adding another bone past that.
Yeah, Yeah. Not making all of your bones
longer, which is the more classic.
That's the normal evolutionary trend.
This is. I love our podcast because I
feel like it's such a subtle way of being Like, bitch, evolution
is true. Like look at how weird.
There's no way we'd have this. Why?
Wouldn't this great creator just stick with one freaky finger and
just give it to everybody? Why you got to be like, no, this
one's going to have these freaky finger.
That's definitely the theme of today.
So it's very strange because the thumb has reduced its phalanges.
It only has two phalanges in the thumb.
Then the index finger in the middle finger have large twisted
hoof like angles or claws. And then there are with I guess
like, yeah, two, it's 23324. That's their phalanx phalangeal
formula. So the thumb has two phalanges,
the index and middle finger have three, the ring finger has two
again, and then the pinky finger has four.
It is weird. It is weird.
It is just, yeah, it's just like, just like strange.
OK, so going back to the whole Organism, not just its fingers,
but Iguanodon had relatively long arms and it was, they were
quite robust and their thought that they were rather inflexible
hands so that those 3 central fingers could bear a lot of
weight. So that's kind of that hoof
idea. The thumbs were conical spikes
that stuck out, as you're noticing, almost at a 90° angle
from the three main digits. And the little finger was
elongated, dexterous and may have been used for manipulating
objects. So with that being said, go
ahead and look at the shit of what an Iguanodon reconstruction
is on the next page. I
can't even, like, hear you. You're laughing so.
I was like, you know, I thought it would be funny to say that
this is like a rocker, but this is definitely, that's a, that's
a sexual gesture. We're just not pinging, but it's
supposed. To like come.
Here, well, it's just the. Three, but yeah, it's going,
yes. I mean, maybe it's three in the
cloak. 2 for the poke. Well, it's one poke and one for
the tickle. Really the.
Tickle. Oh, well, I mean, right, you
might need that. Is it that OK, I have in my
notes show reconstructions laugh hysterically.
I wrote that in. OK, so that is what?
Oh, First off, you need to describe what you're seeing.
OK. So I want you to imagine that,
you know, they've really committed to the thumb spike and
that's going out 90° and then they've taken those 3 sort of
normal fingers and they've webbed them together into a
super finger. Like it's a pinky hitter, Yeah.
Yep, Yep. And then the pinky they've
decided I want, like it just looks like somebody flexed A
bicep. Like it's that degree of curled
over. It looks like a really specific
posture and a pervert drew that. That's what that is.
I don't know what they're into, but they're into something
weird. Anyways, Yep.
Yep, that's exactly Yep. So whether I mean, this is just
an interpretation. It is super weird though.
Incredibly, incredibly strange. Oh, also, I made props for
today's episode. That won't make any real sense.
But this is my Iguanodon. This is my.
She put her hand into an oven Mitt and she tapes some
cardboard to it. It's actually a fake slice of
pizza from Tracys Toy Kitchen. All right, hold on.
We we need to take a screenshot of that pretty clearly.
Could you really tell that it's come to there?
The picture I just took is really bad.
That's perfect. Those are my favorite.
Yeah. Kelly saw this last week and was
like, what the fuck? And I was like, don't worry
about it. He's like, I know what it's for.
He's like, I could tell he's sick.
Fuck. And I was like, you're welcome.
OK, So that's actually just one interpretation of how this
Iguanodon hand would have worked.
When I went to the Natural History Museum of London, they
also had a display on Iguanodon, which makes sense.
The UK is where it was first discovered and named.
So if you want to go ahead and scroll to the second image, you
can see what I think is equally horrifying, to be totally
honest. OK, you know how like like when
an old man can't really trim his toenails and fingernails?
Appropriately, Yeah, they look like creepy.
Giants that they suppose their hands yeah they've gone with
separating the toes on this interpretation to the point
where the hooks look cute facing the same direction if they look
and then. Yeah.
They've made it a tool user. That's what they appear to have
done with that pinky. I hate it.
I like the previous interpretation.
The other one is very shape of water, you ask me.
See, it's. Perverted.
Yeah. I love how many times Shape of
Water comes up in this podcast. I love.
That I've never seen it. Wait, what?
You would actually like it? Would I?
I think you would actually like it.
No. I think it might be one of the
few things that overlaps both of our needs.
OK, interesting. It's very.
I mean, it is very weird. It is not a normal movie.
Well, that does sound like something I would like.
So I guess the next time you come visit, we'll have to watch
Shape of Water. OK, I'll try and find some fish
we can watch it in front of or something, you know?
Yeah, OK. As one does.
So yeah, so this one is, is
super creepy. OK, so then what the fuck?
What, what what were they doing with these hands?
What is going on? And I just find it frustrating
and not. We're just doing bad hand
gestures to each other now. Amy had does not have her mitten
on. Three in the pink.
All right, it's an improvement. OK, so of course, what do you
think we've interpreted this thumb spike to be?
Megan. Imagine you're a man who found
this shit weapon. Yay.
Surprise, surprise, it has been interpreted to be a weapon.
So if you want to go ahead and scroll to see the image I took
at the Natural History Museum, this is on display.
That is such a swole ass Iguanodon.
Look at how big they need it. They need it.
For all of us, they. Need it for stabbing.
Right, straight to the carotid, yeah.
That looks very ET to Brutus like.
Like, win it for a handshake and I'm stabbing you in the neck.
Yeah. So this is what is depicted all
the time. Is Iguanodon in incredibly close
range stabbing a predator directly into the neck?
Weird Kung Fu moves with its flexible pinky.
No, no, that's just for eating and.
Ladies. So the thumb is all his business
in the front, party in the back. I knew coming into it that we
were, we were going to make shocker jokes the whole time.
But like, I'm I'm surprised that we're into them so early in the
episode, I guess. Well, yeah, you're welcome.
It's great. OK, this is so incredibly
common. And so the way I, I couldn't
figure out a way to really demonstrate how insane it is to
me that Iguanodon is either shown as hitchhiking or it's in
this combat in this exact same type of pose.
So if you want to scroll, I literally took a screenshot of
my Google. Image search.
For I searched Iguanodon stabbing and this is the first 3
rows. It's of results.
It's just Iguanodon stabbing like it just looks murderous
like every time the dinosaurs like no, I didn't do anything to
you. Like it doesn't look defensive.
It looks aggressive like this is actually a meat eating dinosaur
with like a vampire. Like it's got like a a love of
throat blood. Oh, I like the one on the upper
right where the other hand is like using to hold the.
Oh yeah. Stay still.
It's kind of sinister, honestly. Right.
And this predator and meat eater is just like, Oh no, why?
Like I'm going to turn my head. So please, I'm sure this isn't
going to be all that hard for you, but do you want to list
some of your concerns with this interpretation of the thumb
spike? I feel like if you are getting
within stabbing distance of the neck of a carnivorous dinosaur,
you are also within biting distance of its teeth.
So this seems like a last resort for when your neck is in its
mouth, you know, like that where this is the iguanodon is like
step first ask questions. Why are Iguanodons so fierce?
They're just, they were just murderers, you know, herbivorous
murderers. Duck billed murderers, yeah.
Yeah, but that is one of the major complaints about this
interpretation of the thumb spike is that it has to be used
at such close range that the dinosaur would be at a lot of
just a lot of danger itself for being there.
Again, it's like bear spray and how they're like, don't use your
bear spray until the bear is a yard away from you and you're
like fuck you. That's terrifying.
That's fucked up. I wish I had a thumb spike.
I just fucking stabbed this bear.
Yeah it does. It just seems like a little too
late. Like a tail spike would have
been more reasonable, but sometimes evolution doesn't give
you what you want, it just gives you something shitty instead.
Yeah, seriously. Evolution.
It's not Christmas. And I'm not saying Noah Guanadon
ever stabbed a theropod in the neck, right?
But it probably also died immediately afterwards from its
many grievous wounds. Right, right.
That it had to that why was it even at such close range exactly
So a lot of times that's still how Iguanodon is interpreted.
The number one thing that comes up about the purpose of the
thumb spike is still for violence and defense and all
that. And of course there are other
paleontologists that believe it is more for this herbivorous
lifestyle and. I say digging or something,
yeah. Breaking into seeds, digging,
breaking into fruit. I found this.
Trees stabbing. Trees, but it's kind of like
giant ground sloths in my opinion too.
About if you looked at the claws of a giant ground sloth you
would be like shit they were just stabbing.
They were too mad left. And right, they were just, yeah.
And we know that they were using those giant ass claws to get
branches and get foliage and be able to eat.
And that I read this awesome article by Riley Black, I think
in the Smithsonian. And she was writing about how it
could, again, her interpretation is, well, what if it is
something like what we see in pandas and even red pandas, I
think, where it's something about like gathering and getting
branches and then being able to easily like slice up kind of
through it to like get the foliage off of your branches by
having this adaptation that's pointy on this end.
And then you got that nice prehensile finger on the other
side to keep that branch in place while you're then
skewering this food source. So I would love to see more work
come out about Iguanodon. I love all the art, but let's do
some more studies perhaps. But please, someone keep drawing
these insane things. And the only other thing I have
to say about this paper that I read was that I laughed really
hard because they described the thumb claw as being described as
horny. And I just lost my shit because
I am who I am. And then I was like, that's a
really interesting way to describe this.
I wonder if they use it any other times in this paper.
And so I searched it and they used it like 15 times.
So yeah, mostly to describe the beak of Iguanodon.
It's got a horny beak, a horny claw, and a horny sheet.
It's a. Horn and I.
Was like, have you looked at the hands?
The hands are horny my friend. That's what I have for you on
Iguanodon and that I don't buy the thumb spike for violence
except in absolutely necessary situations.
And I think that it is something more towards this foliage and
something more for feeding on plants.
That's my two cents, but I honestly don't care.
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OK, well yeah, let's let's switch gears and let's move on
to creepy ass pandas. So pandas have 6 fingers.
And when I say pandas, I do mean both giant pandas and red
pandas. And those are two animals that
used to be grouped together, both because of their extra 6
finger and presumably because both of them cute and fuzzy and
similarly colored like once red, but whatever.
Like they have the same kind of dramatic ass markings, but they
are in completely separate families.
Panda bears are actually bears. Red pandas are in a totally
separate group of carnivores. So they are different, but they
both do have 6 fingers. And as I was researching this, I
remembered that you and I had kind of looked at these at one
point and both been like, what the fuck?
That's seven fingers. What the fuck?
So I did go a little bit more
into detail, so you can go ahead and Scroll down to that first
image. Dear God.
So what I've given you is I've given you a giant panda hand
because it's a lot more dramatic on the giant panda than it is on
the red panda. Then you've got a human hand
with the OK, I'm going to call it pisiform.
I don't remember how you say it, and every time I say pisiform, I
do think that that's not right, but I am going to call it
pisiform. I'm good.
So we've got yeah. But that's the carpool.
Yeah, yeah. So the Pisiform is a carpool and
we have one, it's just much smaller.
And I went ahead and highlighted it on the dog as well.
Well, I didn't highlight it. I included a dog image because I
did have to spend some time Googling because if you look at
that. Giant Panda hand.
Why don't you go ahead and describe what you see with the
giant panda hand? So the giant panda is in the
upper left. Yeah, with the free, it's the
bad one. Yeah, it looks crazy.
So it looks like it has five normal ish kind.
Well, they look like 5 digits that don't look like a thumb.
Yes, they look all like kind of your middle index.
Those fingers. It's like 5 normal fingers, no
thumb except for this little chicken bone thing.
Is that on the That's the thumb. Yeah.
So the the thing that I think was most confusing to me is that
when you look at these illustrations of giant panda
hands, they always include the pissiform bone because it is a
carpal. So to be faithful, they do have
to look pinky. And it is.
Pinky finger side. No, it's not the one that looks
like the pinky, it's the one that looks like the thumb.
That's why it's confusing. So you've got the little tiny
chicken wing that is right next to the pinky that looks like
it's articulating in the same direction, and then you've got
the pisiform bone sticking out. And that I kept looking at and
thinking that was the thumb. It is not.
The pisiform bone is essentially the same thing as a calcaneum,
like it's a heel, it's a lever. And it just so happens that in
pandas, their pisiform bone is really close to the rest of
their stuff because they are plantigrade, not digitigrade.
And they're plantigrade on both their front and their back legs.
So their pisiform bone has moved very close to the rest of their
hand. And it looks like it should be a
seventh finger, but it's actually articulating the other
direction. So pandas do indeed only have 6
fingers. It's not like every other side
just miss something. Greedy bitches.
Yeah, OK. And.
So but the OK but the chicken bone thing on the left is their
pinky finger. Yes, and their thumb looks like
a normal digit in a super long. Kind of, but go ahead and Scroll
down to the next image and you'll see what it actually
looks like on a panda with flesh.
So they really are using that pisiform, whatever we're calling
it as a thumb. No, it's the opposite.
The pisiform is the fleshy pad. Oh, it's the fleshy pad.
Oh, but that says that that's a radial sesmoid.
Yes, so. There's Oh my God, what are what
is wrong with you? Look into those eyes.
Those are dead eyes. Yeah, they are the, you know,
pandas. They want to die just like
horses. So they really do in pandas,
both red pandas and giant pandas.
Part of the reason that they were like, oh, they must be
related is because it's not just that they've developed a sixth
finger, it's that the sixth finger isn't a real finger.
It is the radial sesamoid, which you and I also, I believe, have
a radial sesamoid. It's one of these things in our
wrist, but sesamoid. Bones.
Yeah, well, sesamoid bones. At all costs.
You would hate even more because the word sesamoid comes from, I
guess the word in Greek for sesame seeds because they're
usually really small. Because sesamoid bones are
really more of a calcification of your tendon.
They're often used to like help redirect your tendon and to like
create pulley action. So they're tendon bones.
So not every animal has the same number of sesamoid bones.
The biggest sesamoid bone in your body is the Patella.
Yep, it's your knee bone. It is not like the other bones
in your legs. It is a tendon bone that is out
of fucking control. That's what the Patella is.
So weird and it hurts all the time.
No, Nope it doesn't, so you should check that out.
It's not normal, I already know. OK, I already know my knees in.
Fact. So it's all good.
Yeah, so. Yeah, but that's why the number
of bones in the human body, like they're like it's 206.
And it's like because it varies even amongst individuals are
largely because of these bones because you some people have
some and some people don't. And sometimes they're very, very
little. They're literally sesame seed
size. So, you know, sometimes they
don't. Some sesamoid bones are bigger
than others. How all these words are based on
like, food. I love how people were just
like, hungry. I'm so hungry.
That's why I'm identifying and labeling these bones.
So the sesamoid bone in pandas, it does create a false thumb,
but only in that it is taking like their palm and making a
more sticky Audi component of their palm.
It's only one bone. It's actually pretty flat if you
look at them, they're not super elongate and pointy like
Iguanodon, which is actually kind of interesting.
And I do wonder if if we're looking at comparisons, I
actually don't know that a panda thumb is the best comparison
because panda thumbs are not spikes.
They are more like flat ribbons with a little curl cussian.
Pandas are lovers. Not, no.
Pandas are distinctly not lovers.
That's their whole problem. That is why they are dying.
Hey, maybe they're just asexual. Yes.
So this, this radial sesamoid bone has evolved in both giant
pandas and red pandas for the same, well, they use it the same
way they both use it to. I kept calling it corn shucking
in my notes, like they're stripping the leaves off of
bamboo. But you know, it's, it's easier
than corn. They don't have to do any fine
scale manipulations, but they've both chosen to eat bamboo and
that sixth finger helps them. So I want to know show you my
deformity which is relatively new that it is related.
So sesamoid bones are bones that form within your tendon and a
ganglion cyst is what happens when you hit your hand too hard
against something and you develop a cyst on your tendon.
So. You see that robe so you for
real, Megan has like a pea sized bump at the base of her palm
sticking out and it looks like she's she's trying to stab me in
the neck with it. Guys, she is trying.
To I'm trying to full on Iguanon.
Guanidod was so bad at volleyball, Yeah.
Just kept deflating the balls. Yeah.
So I have a ganglion cyst. I don't know if they're actually
necessarily related, but I did think that that was funny
because this is really hard, which is part of how I knew that
it was a ganglion cyst and not something else.
It's because it's. Very, very hard you've been.
Here for like a year. What'd you do?
I think I like hit it really hard against the fridge.
That's kind of what I remember. That's anti dramatic.
Yeah, it wasn't cool. It was not like I hit a bus
trying to save a baby or something.
It was. I think I just hit it hard
against the fridge and then like looked down like an hour later
and was like, wow, there's a bump there.
And then it never went away. OK, so that OK, so this is
fascinating. That's weird.
That's gross. I am still like very distracted
by their weird chicken bone finger too.
Like cuz you can't really. That doesn't seem to even it
doesn't end in a claw. So this image of the panda has 5
digits on top that are wrapped around a branch and they're all
with a claw. And then you can see the gross
sesamoid bone gripping it there and the but oh, so is that the
feel sesamoid like the Oh no, it's that thing down there.
Here I'm gonna actually go ahead.
I'm gonna post another picture I wasn't sure if I should add.
Yet that's not how many. I did go ahead and Scroll down
to the last image. Yeah, that's actually really
beautiful. Yeah.
Gross. Yeah.
Oh, and you can see how it has like that curling edge and the
little thing called in panel D, the, like, dark flat version
that is a ancient panda bone because as of 2022, the oldest
panda thumb that we have is from the Miocene.
It's about 7,000,000 years old. And the paper pointed out that
one interesting thing about the panda thumb, the giant panda
thumb, is that you would assume it was getting longer over time
as they became more and more specialized for bamboo eating.
But if you look at the Miocene ones, there's are actually
slightly longer. Yeah.
So the thought is that this is an evolutionary tradeoff, that
by having these long thumbs, you are sacrificing some of your
mobility. Because it turns out pandas
don't just sit and eat, they also walk to go find another
place to sit and eat. And they put all of their weight
on all four legs and they are plantigrade.
That means they walk on their you and I are plantigrade as
well. We walk on our palms of our feet
and they would walk on their their palms of their feet and
the palms of their hand. Not like dogs and deer and
everything who walk on like more tiptoe.
So as a result, they can't really afford to have a super
long opposable bone, especially since it's it's really just a
lump. Like I don't know that they
actually have that much mobility.
It's just something lumpy to hold bamboo up against.
So if it was any longer, it would potentially impede the
pandas ability to. Walk.
Wow, this actually like makes me like pandas a little bit more.
I'm going to be honest, this is like.
Redeeming Is it because this image looks like it's jerking
off a piece of bamboo? I mean, like I'm always here for
that. They also just have really real
like the the distal ends of their meta meta carpals and the
proximal ends of their Phalangea.
They're really bumpy. Like they're really like got all
sorts of extra bumps and grooves.
Like they're very, I don't know, roller coaster ride.
Yeah. I mean, it's also possible that
like this particular panda had arthritis or something and we're
just assuming that this is a normal panda hand and it's not.
I don't know for sure. And so is there.
I think it's the same Panda Hand.
Do we see all the time their? Piss bone.
The piss hand bone is that. Yeah, the pissiform is that.
More of a thing with their walking then to be more of the
stable platform for their locomotion.
As I understand it, yeah, that's more what they're using it for.
They're not using it in any sort of pincher movement with their.
It's with their it's just expanding its base, its surface
area. Yeah, on the ground, yeah.
Wow. See, but it is like the
Iguanodon in terms of it's trying, it's doing lots of
different adaptations with one. Yeah, when?
Creepy men. Yep.
It's really trying to do a lot. It is trying to do the most, but
the most is really just eating bamboo.
Real. Good.
So even the Miocene ones had this, what we would say extra
digit in a way, but it wasn't as derived and curved yet, but they
were so still probably doing. Do we know when the extra digit
came about? What's the common ancestor with
pandas? What's the next bear?
So we'll, we'll get to other bears in a second.
But like pandas, it seems that we've got the very old thumb.
We've got a Pleistocene one that looks kind of like today's.
And the very old thumb is slightly longer and just isn't
as curved. So like they grew out this big
old sesamoid bone, made it longer, and then they used it as
a base for scraping bamboo. And with red pandas, they have
kind kind of a similar story, but red pandas have a a little
bit of a difference because red pandas, unlike giant pandas,
they are arboreal. So like if you look up giant
panda tree, you're going to see lots of funny videos of them
falling out of trees because they are incapable of life.
But red pandas move a lot like raccoons, they are arboreal.
And when you look at red panda evolution, First off, red
pandas, their six finger is not nearly as obvious.
It's definitely you kind of have to look at their bones in order
to see. I think actually the next
drawing is an illustration, but even then it's really not.
Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah.
But it's. Still doing a similar it's it is
holding it in place there with this bamboo.
Stock, Yep, while they RIP the leaves off.
And if you look at the ancestors, we do have one again
from the Miocene. So I don't know what was going
on in the Miocene, but red pandas, there's one from Spain
and the Miocene that also has the 6th thumb.
It's smaller, but it's not a bamboo eater.
What it is, is arboreal. So they think that actually in
red pandas, they evolved this more for their arboreal
lifestyle and then just happened to find out that it was
convenient for bamboo ripping. Oh.
Oh so the this extra thumb quote UN quote came before the bamboo.
Yes, yeah. Wow, that's.
Cool. Yeah.
So they had some funny quotes in this paper.
They're not that funny. But I thought they were funny
because, you know, they had to be like, well, how could the
panda, the giant panda eventually get a more usable
thumb? Well, they might.
They have to get around this whole plantigrade thing.
So they've got to overcome a constraint by becoming
digitigrade. And I just thought that that was
funny because at no point that these people suggest why not
just become bipedal because of course bipedalism is so much
more fucking complicated than just walking on your toe tips.
But as a primate, I was like, no, just stand up bitch.
You want to keep your dumb fuck you just stand up.
Your rotate like a slot. Stab it too, right?
Yeah. So they only had one suggestion
which was walk on your toe tips but a suggestion.
Like. Hi, their hands.
Yeah, right. A lot of other things go knuckle
walking, a lot of. Times, Yeah, Iguanodon.
Iguanodon. This is like whatever the fuck
Iguanodon was smoking. Can I?
Please. I guess actually Iguanodon would
be digital grade though, right? That's what it's doing.
So yeah, I think it's just like horrific grade, but, you know,
just be fucking terrifying. OK, So we had like a Miocene
renaissance of fingers. We're pandas.
Yes, yes. And so, yeah, this is, I know
that at least when I went to college, this is kind of like
the classic this is how evolution works story.
Because what would really make sense is for the panda just to
take one of its fingers and turn it into a thumb.
It would work a lot better, but it can't because that's not
evolution isn't directional. It takes what you got and it
works with it. And what is really easy, as it
turns out, easier even than my fucking evolution class has
taught me, is making an elongated sesamoid bone.
Because up until this morning I thought only pandas had done
that. And no, that is not true.
So this is the weird fucking rabbit hole I went down, which
is how many animals have evolved extra fingers, especially ones
that came from radial sesamoid bones.
So radial sesamoid bones in particular seem to.
A lot. Also, that fucking pissiform
bone. That bitch becomes an extra
finger in other animals. So that's where we're going
next. OK, we're going to start out
strong with a group of animals that instead of using a sesamic
bone, they actually, it looks like it was cartilaginous rods
that they then ossified. So they took cartilage and they
said, you know what would love an extra finger right there?
Why don't I go ahead and make it an extra finger and I'll make it
Bony so that I can support my big fat body weight.
That's right, we're talking about elephants.
How many fingers? Do fucking elephants have?
Come through. I don't fucking know.
I don't or think about. I did not know they all look
like one giant trunk, but not trunk.
That's a bad word because they have that.
But like tree trunk for legs with the elephant trunk for I
don't know. I don't think about.
I'm like actively wearing
mammoth earrings. So I can't say I don't think
about probosidians. Yeah, elephants, they've grown
an additional bone basically to help support them because
they're not that tree trunk is not fully them walking on their
toe tips. It's them walking on like
they're called sub digital grade because it's not quite walking
on toe tips like dogs do. It's like one additional joint
and they are compromising because they're super, super
heavy. So it's hard to be digital grade
if you're that big and they've compromised by just getting an
extra finger and an extra toe. Sometimes that's just what you.
Need did you just say thumb times?
Fuck you. Thumb times.
That's just what you need. I didn't mean to if I did the
first time, but that's OK, yeah. All right, next one, cotton
rats. That's not really an animal I
knew about, but apparently it's a rat that lives in Peru and
it's radial sesamoid bone is actually longer in comparison to
its hand than the pandas are. It's done a better job making a
finger, and it's curved because they use it.
What's weird with them is that they live out in kind of the
open. They don't live in like trees.
So why do they need this? They're probably.
Scaling bushes because to a rat a Bush is a tree like right?
Yeah, fair. It's all it is.
It's just like to my broccoli tree.
You're right. Exactly.
It lives in an arboreal lifestyle in the sagebrush step
sort of thing. Like it's it's living in bushes
and it's using it to scale things and maybe pick up
objects. But yeah, not a lot is known
about cotton rats, I guess. So that's that's what I got from
that paper. So they need really fine scale
control. Frogs have extra fingers for no
reason. It's not really clear where
those are coming from. God, God Megan and wanted them
that way. Sorry, moles also have an extra
finger, and it is functionally the equivalent of the radial
sesamoid. It's I think it's a slightly
different sesamoid, maybe because moles are not super
closely related to us, but it's like a big scalloped thing and
it's used to support their gross finger mittens when they're
digging. Because they are.
Because they just wanted wider hands creatures.
Yeah, yes. Yes.
Generally terrifying. Extra terrifying is that one
mole has extra toes that are doing the exact same thing It
has function. Got a 6th toe if you could.
They don't. Front see it from the back.
Yeah, they don't. That's actually pretty much what
the author said. For evolutionary reasons, the
other clearly got to the end of that paper and was like, yeah,
it's got one on its foot. I don't know, maybe they're
linked. Maybe you can't have one without
the other. Put me in the specific AdWords.
And. Forwards, they're like, there's
clearly no reason for it. And I was like really there's no
OK, sure. So.
Sometimes it could just be in a byproduct of, who knows.
What exactly you know, but it's a stand.
For a sign function, don't even do that to me.
You know I get faint when you quote Gould.
I was going to say, actually one of the other papers did have a
Gould quote in it. Yeah, specifically about pandas,
the pandas. He wrote a whole fucking book,
yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And the pandas thumb. So I would tell you to write to
him, but. He's dead.
Yeah, he's dead. So yeah, Frogs, moles, flying
squirrels took their pissiform bone and they made it into
cartilage. So they have an extra
cartilaginous kind of rod to help.
Support their to help with their right pajam.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do think we should do an
episode at some point all about skin flap flying.
Like we should talk about flying squirrels and Kalugos and.
Those weird. Reptiles, black snakes, so.
Cute. Sure, sure.
I'm distracted by because it goes I I'm low key obsessed.
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it's true.
I could just save this fucking pterosaur shit for that.
So the the last one that I went and looked into that with me
particularly mad because. Mad or grossed out?
I mean, I found all of this disgusting, sorry if I haven't
made that clear. Sesamoid bones are disgusting.
My ganglion cyst is disgusting. All of this is kind of nasty and
I don't want to think about it too much.
The shit that's inside of your hand should stay inside of your
hand and you shouldn't be able to just get extra fingers.
I feel like that's against the rules and it's no it's going so
wrong and making it hard to walk.
But pandas are not the only fucking bear that has an extra
radial sesamoid that has an elongated sesamoid bone.
Like we talk about giant pandas. Like Oh my God, they're so
evolved. Yeah, well, fucking spectacle
Deers also have. One do we spectacle bears are
their own precious, beautiful Yeah creation of Yeah.
Me and they did get them independently they it's not like
they share a common ancestor with pandas.
They got them independently and they use them for this is the
most Here's the most metal description of how they're This
is very Iguanodon stabby esque. They removed the leaves of
bromolaids and palms to obtain the heart.
The heart. The heart, they're going for
the. Heart of the palm?
Yeah. Of the palm of.
The palm of the bromolaid? Yeah, of the of the plant.
Did you ever see that hilarious video that people that they
posted about a spectacle bear? No, I think in China and people
accuse them of it being a person wearing a bear suit because it
looked so stupid and they were like, no, this is just what this
dumb bear looks like. And like because it was like
kind of standing bipedally and it's like ass looked really
saggy. It's so everyone was like, come
on, stop dressing up as zoo animals.
And the zoo was like, no, we swear it's a bear.
I didn't, but that doesn't surprise me because I did do A5.
I will. Send you that.
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was pretty hilarious.
And it was like, no, it is a real, it's a real bear.
So yeah, they're great. They're great.
Yeah. And then I guess one just last
sidebar on pandas is that red pandas evolved in North America
and the oldest red panda is from Washington State.
So that's oh. Yep, I.
Didn't know that. Awesome.
And I thought oh OK, well red pandas are special.
Did you know that there was like a relative of the giant panda
found in North America? No, you should because I'm
pretty sure it was your pandas. Paleobiology or your vertebrate
paleontology apology final project.
I didn't do well on that. The professor really didn't like
me, remember. That's true.
I had to describe. They were deciduous bear molars.
Yeah, but I didn't know it was or I have forgotten.
I was definitely not consuming a lot of cannabis at that time.
Definitely. Not, no, of course not.
Really not. I don't know what you eventually
decided that the bear was. I don't remember that.
But I do remember you were at one point considering in
Darkdose and Agriatherium. Wow, you remember?
Way more about that project than me.
I do not remember any of that. I don't remember why, but I do
remember that you were looking at those two and in Darkdose is
a member of the subfamily that includes pandas.
OK, so that's a fucking panda, more or less does it?
Look like a panda. No, it doesn't have an extra
sesamoid bone and it was not eating bamboo.
Is this another fucking zebra situation?
Hagerman fucking it's. Just like Bible heartbreak up in
here. I'm just like don't call it.
I don't think that all pandas looked as stupid as modern
pandas. I imagine some of them were
slightly cool, like even in like the paper.
Genetics on that. When did they start looking?
Well, when did they go stupid? When do they get cutesy and
dumb? Yeah.
I mean, even in the paper that was describing that myosin Panda
Thumb, the pandas that they illustrated look much more regal
and noble than real fucking pandas.
Like they tried to make pandas cooler than pandas actually are.
But yeah, that and one of the agriatheriums has been split off
into another genus, and that's also in the panda family.
So you might have been looking at a panda relative.
For your project, a panda? Yeah, it's as close as I'll
come. Oh, wait.
I think I got to touch some hides when I was at the
Smithsonian a few years ago, which is controversial.
Anyway, they were like, this is that famous panda from the zoo
years ago. And I was like, so you're like,
OK, all right. Looking into its empty eyes.
Yeah, it's cool. Pandas, Pandas.
So yeah, pandas. They're from North America on
both fronts, or at least some of them were in North America.
That's cool, because I usually only think of red pandas at
least as the grey fossil site in Tennessee.
I know that there are red pandas there, but it makes sense that
they were distributed across the country.
Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.
So that's what I have for Pandas.
And it looks like we've just filmed an entire episode getting
upset about pandas and Iguanodons, which is great.
But so maybe we can make it a 2? Parter I think this is a 2
parter about how mad we are about fingers.
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Thanks so much for joining the team.
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